


Retrograde

by simplyprologue



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Alcholism, Child Abuse, Gen, Pre-Series, Vietnam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2804972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyprologue/pseuds/simplyprologue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Few more years to go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Retrograde

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** Once more moving drabbles from my tumblr over here for archiving. Nothing to see here...

**Da Nang, Vietnam, 1968**

* * *

 

A kid sits next to him at the bar. Not a  _kid_ , Charlie corrects himself, stalwartly staring forward into his warm bourbon. A kid wouldn’t be in a bar in Da Nang wearing army fatigues and the 27th Infantry Regiment’s insignia.  "Hey." 

Charlie indicates his head towards the kid. “Hey.”

Then the kid orders a drink. And then another. And another, and another, and then a shot, and Charlie would consider caring except that he really, really doesn’t. That, and the fact that he’s fairly drunk himself, and farm-bred and corn-fed sitting next to him isn’t incredibly obtrusive and this is all to be expected from the servicemen’s bar that  _he_  decided to go to, anyway.

His marine regiment is back in town. 

He nods at the bartender, signaling for another bourbon. Which the kid promptly knocks over while trying to proposition one of the young Vietnamese women milling about trying to take orders and clear empties.

"Shit, sorry man," the kid slurs, before patting himself down for his wallet. "I’ll get you another." 

Charlie nearly tells him no, not wanting to give the kid a reason to talk to him, but the kid fumbles a few dollars out of the pocket of his jacket and they’re in the bartender’s hand before he can protest. 

"Just got in from the A Shau Valley," the kid says, reaching for his own beer as still tries to sort out the contents of his pockets. "Time to get fucked up, right? Never got to kill anything like this back on the farm. But shit, shootin’ a VC is the same as pulling the trigger on a deer, ain’t it?"

A stack of crinkled pictures flutters out of his pocket and onto the bar, saving Charlie from answering.

“That your kid?” he asks instead, trying desperately to not think of Leona, who must be due any day now.

Charlie's finger just barely touches the face of the blonde little boy smiling on his mother’s lap. The kid snorts. “Yeah, that’s Billy. Haven’t seen him in a fucking year, so I’m sure his bitch of a mother has ruined him. Only I would have the luck to knock up a girl right outta high school, right? And I had to knock up one of them good Catholic girls, so next thing I knew I was standing at the altar. Then we had two more. And now she wants  _another_ one.”

“He looks like a sweet kid.”

“I said I wouldn’t know,” the kid answers defensively, snatching the picture back.

Shrugging, Charlie takes the re-filled tumbler of bourbon (his fourth, of the night, and clearly he’s much more practiced at this than farmboy) from the bartender, and drinks instead of saying something stupid or, as he’d rather do, punch this guy in the fucking face. After all, the 27th Infantry is being moved to the Quang Ngai Province next week to take over the tunnels. Maybe the kid will get lucky and fall into one of the snake pits or run into a U-bend of gas and won’t have to worry about having a good Catholic wife.

Maybe little Billy will find a better father. 

 

* * *

  **Waverly, Nebraska, 1979**

* * *

 

"I’m getting too good at this. You have to stop." It’s unflavored dental floss and one of Mom’s sewing needles, but it works just fine, Liz stitching him back together in neat and ordered rows. 

They’re in their bedroom, Mickey reading comics under his bed, Fiona curled up like a cat on his lap. If he looks down he can see her eyes glinting in the halogen light in her otherwise inexpressive face. The dresser is pushed just in front of the door, wedged in the way they learned years ago. It’s enough. 

Dad won't get in.

Will sighs, tilting his chin up to fit into Liz’s unyielding grasp. “I’m leaving in three weeks. I’d rather he get it out on me before I go.”

"You’re instigating him," she mutters, and blows a lock of blonde hair that’s fallen from her ponytail out of her face. "And now look at you." Pulling another stitch, too tightly, she bites her lip. "What are you gonna do about law school if Dad bashes your brains in?"

"At least someone would finally put him back in fucking prison," he mutters back.

"Billy, don’t curse," Fiona peeps, the first thing she’s said in hours.

He sighs, combing his fingers through her curls instead of wincing at Liz’s haphazard attempt at putting a three inch stretch of his hairline back together. “Sorry, Fi.” 

Liz purses her lips together into a stern line. “Don’t talk like that,” she says in a harsh whisper, gripping his chin until it hurts. “You’re getting out of here. I can handle the rest.”

"You’re seventeen."

"You’re barely any older!" She glares down at him with the same blue eyes, same angular jaw. Jabbing at where he knows there’s blood on his flannel shirt (with her knuckle, thankfully, not the needle) she spits out, "You better not pick any fights in New York City. I won’t be there to fix you." 

* * *

**New York City, New York, 2013**

* * *

 

Her dreams are infrequent and typically intangible.

But on the night of Charlie’s death (after dismissing Reese and Becca back to their own apartments, after sitting up in the stiff-backed armchair in her living room, continuing to drink in silence) she trips into sleep with the help of an Ambien and the fading bourbon drunk. 

She knows it’s a dream.

Vietnam was never as kind to them as it is now, lying on their backs side-by-side outside of god knows which of the dozens of villages they visited, looking up at the stars. Bong Son, Leona thinks, blinking up at the wrong stars. Reese was probably conceived in Bong Son, and she left three days later to marry his father’s half-brother back home. 

Charlie lies beside her, impossibly young. Face still lined, still haggard. She knows if she curls into her side and into him his breath will smell like bourbon and cigarette smoke. 

But so will hers. 

He reaches for her hand, twining their fingers together in the grass.

And then smiles. 

"I won’t see you again, will I, Lee?" he asks. 

With a sense of disquiet, she jerks awake, staring up into the black of her bedroom. Sleep takes her again almost immediately. The dreams continue to come, and by first sunlight she’s in Manhattan with a news division to call her own. 

She decides: she has to buy ACN back. 

No matter the cost. 


End file.
